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By the way, the city has more than paid off the arena cost, and has an excess of $985k.....this assuming they only get $19M, and does not include the out-parcel right at the corner of Trade and Caldwell.....the money is being put back into the pool that can be used for tourism or capital expenses, so it could in theory be used for Arts.

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$20m bid was place by Comstock! It could even go higher if Pope wants it badly enough. This is great news! It really seemed like it would be millions short of expectations when Crescent lowered their bid after the rezoning. Now getting so much for the land is a very pleasant surprise.

Not only that, but the city will start getting tax revenue off a $300m project.

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Well....as I've said, the city needed just over $18M to balance the books, so anything in excess of that is "gravy". I really hope Comstock wins this, because from people who have seen their site and development plans, it is a better product, and would likely be built in a shorter time frame than Pope, therefore increasing the tax base sooner.

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It is good to see that the Maya Lin holly sculptures will remain intact.

Too bad you can only tell what they are when flying over them. Ms Lin (designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington) laughed all the way to the bank on that one. The 1987 contract under which the city paid $340,000 (to her) gives her the right to reclaim and move the sculpture (called Topo) if the city or new owners decide to dispose of it.

If Charlotte leaders hadn't caved to the likes of art afficianados John Boy and Billy in 1986, the originally proposed 22-foot, $400,000 bronze sculpture by Joel Shapiro could have actually been moved uptown to the new arena. Mr. Shapiro

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Too bad you can only tell what they are when flying over them. Ms Lin (designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington) laughed all the way to the bank on that one. The 1987 contract under which the city paid $340,000 (to her) gives her the right to reclaim and move the sculpture (called Topo) if the city or new owners decide to dispose of it.

If Charlotte leaders hadn't caved to the likes of art afficianados John Boy and Billy in 1986, the originally proposed 22-foot, $400,000 bronze sculpture by Joel Shapiro could have actually been moved uptown to the new arena. Mr. Shapiro

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The bidding is now up to $22.2m, and Comstock is again the highest bidder. Hopefully the bidding war will continue and this will exceed the $24m originally offered by Crescent before the land was rezoned.

Now that we are at least close, I think it might be most important for the best developer to win the property. I think it was mentioned earlier that Comstock had a better overall plan, and would build more of the project sooner.

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Well, we now have another new bid of $23.4m by Pope. We are now so close to the original bid by Crescent that it is now okay that the city rezoned the land to get a better project. Hopefully, they will keep going.

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$23.3m isn't so bad. It is a shame though, that Comstock couldn't do one more and get us to $24m. I hope that Pope does a good job with this project. They really could help convert that area demographically.